


Courtesy Call

by Gia279



Series: Practice Ficlets [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, One Shot, Prophetic Visions, prompt, scribes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 15:51:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gia279/pseuds/Gia279
Summary: The Stilinskis were a remarkably mundane family. No magic to speak of, no werewolves in the family tree, not a drop of vampire blood, not even a single, misplaced Seer.





	Courtesy Call

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** “A family mystery uncovered”
> 
> So this one is shorter than the others o.e Hope you enjoy! Not beta read, so. yknow. Sorry lol

The Stilinskis were a remarkably mundane family. No magic to speak of, no werewolves in the family tree, not a drop of vampire blood, not even a single, misplaced Seer. Stiles was well aware of his family’s utter humanity, so it was something of a surprise when a piece of wallpaper in the guest room came down when he was dusting, revealing thick black lines and a tiny depiction of the very house he was standing in. He hesitated, then, as his curiosity got the better of him, ripped down the rest of the wallpaper. 

The drawing was bigger than just their house. It spanned the whole room, sprawling over all of the walls, brushing up against the ceiling but never quite reaching it. Upon closer inspection, there were small, numbered red dots all over. 1 was by what looked like the Hale house, and 2 was in the preserve, near where Stiles had met Derek the first time. He followed the dots around the room; there were far over eight hundred, each numbered, all in different places around the town. Stiles didn’t see what the significance was. 

“Stiles? You home?” John called. 

Stiles replied, faintly, “In the guest room.”

John seemed to understand his tone, because he came clomping up the stairs a moment later. 

“What _is_ this?” Stiles demanded. He put his arms out to gesture at all of the walls. “What do the numbers mean?”

“Ah, hell,” John sighed, instead of exclaiming in shock like Stiles had half hoped he would. “I hoped you wouldn’t ever see this.”

“What _is_ it?”

He sighed again. “When your mom was eight months pregnant with you, she drew this.”

“Why?” Stiles ran his hands through his hair, twisting to look at the walls again. 

“She said it was important, didn’t want it taken down.” 

“What do the numbers mean? How is this important?” Stiles crossed his arms. “I thought we weren’t Seers.”

“We aren’t! _Stilinskis_ aren’t,” he emphasized. “And to be fair, your mother’s family isn’t, either.”

Stiles made a disbelieving noise and gestured at the walls again. He couldn’t come up with anything else, though, and settled for staring at dot 829. 

“She wasn’t…” He sighed. “There are notebooks,” he admitted. “I think the numbers are probably pages. We cleaned out the shelf that week,” he remembered, his gaze going distant. He looked at the walls wistfully. “She spent an entire Sunday in here, drawing this. Then she spent the rest of the week filling the notebooks, numbering those…dots.” 

Stiles shook his head. He touched one of the black lines, tracing it to their house. “Why’d you keep it secret?”

“I think you’d better take a look at the notebooks.” He rubbed his face. “Come on. They’re in the attic.” 

They went up together. 

Stiles hadn’t been in the attic in years, and then he’d only been putting up some stuff he didn’t want to get rid of but didn’t want in his way. Claudia’s stuff was tucked away in the furthest corner. They’d gotten rid of most of her clothes, but had kept things like her favorite dress, or the gray sweatshirt with the wine stain on the sleeve, things that were too much of her to let go of. 

John crossed his arms at the sight of the boxes, his face tightening. “It’ll be the two marked ‘papers’.” 

“Two? It’s two boxes filled with just notebooks?”

“They’re…detailed.” John shrugged uncomfortably. “Here, we’ll take them down, so you can match up the pages with the dots on the map.” They hefted the boxes together. 

Stiles climbed down first and let John drop the boxes down to him one at a time. They were surprisingly heavy, for cardboard filled with notebooks, but he guessed their combined weight added up. 

Back to the guest room. Stiles tore open the first box. The notebooks were arranged neatly and numbered with sharpie on their covers. Stiles dug through until he found the one marked **1**. 

“I’m going to go get dinner started,” John said quietly. “You just…look through those.” 

“Alright.” 

John sighed, ruffled Stiles’s hair, and left the room. 

Stiles flipped open the first notebook, matching it with the first dot. Inside, on the page labeled ‘1’, was a rough, ink sketch of a burning house. A young man knelt before it, head bowed, shoulders drawn down in utter defeat. 

Page 2 depicted a man with his back turned, walking away from the viewer, hands in his pockets. 

On and on it went, depicting various events, big and small, all marked on the wall with a corresponding number, each sketched out with increasing detail. Some spanned a couple pages. Some of them Stiles didn’t even recognize, others he did, still others he was _in_. Number 1057 depicted Stiles finding the map on the walls. 1058 showed Derek Hale staring up at the ruins of the old Hale house, alone in the woods. This was one of the more detailed ones that took up a few pages, the entirety of the Hale house depicted, every line of grief in Derek’s body easily visible, even in plain black ink. 

Stiles flicked his finger over the drawn curve of Derek’s jaw, fascinated. He looked so sad. Which made sense, of course, the poor guy was standing outside of the place his whole family had died. 

He spent hours searching the notebooks, matching each event with its number. The last page had a note. _This is important,_ his mother’s handwriting said. _All of them are important._

Stiles pulled his phone out and flipped back to page 1060 while it rang. “Hey, Derek,” he said, wondering if he really did smile like that, in just that way when he heard Derek’s voice. “Want to go grab some dinner? Yeah,” he said firmly, glancing at page 1061, “like a date.”


End file.
